Anna Akhmatova was born on June 23, 1888, in the Russian town of Bolshoy Fontan, near the resort town Odessa. Her real name was Anna Andreyevna Gorenko: the pen name she used was her grandmother's. She began publishing her poetry in 1907. The first person to publish her poetry was Nicholas G. Gumilyov, who was himself a major Russian poet of the early twentieth century, one of the founders of the influential Acmeist movement. Akhmatova and Gumilyov were married in 1910: they were intellectually well matched but emotionally distant and ended up divorcing in 1918, after having one son. Meanwhile, Akhmatova had become a famous literary figure in Russia after the publication of her first book, Evening, in 1912, and her fame continued to grow.

The Communist party, which took control over Russia in 1917, had Gumilyov executed for treason in 1921. Akhmatova was considered anti- Communist, and as such, her works were banned by the...